Kashimo seized a fleeting opening.
Mahoraga's Sword of Extermination had swept past, its montum leaving the beast's flank exposed for a fraction of a second. He didn't hesitate. His hand snapped down like a lightning strike, a clean, horizontal chop that severed Mahoraga's arm at the shoulder.
The pale limb spun through the air before hitting the rubble with a heavy, hollow thud.
The beast stiffened. The white silhouette froze as thick, black cursed energy began to churn at the stump, as if the creature were struggling to process the sudden loss. Kashimo moved in before it could recover.
The first punch caught Mahoraga in the chest. The second slamd into its face. The third, fourth, and fifth followed in a blur of pure, calculated violence. He drove the beast back, each strike carving fresh craters into the earth beneath its feet.
It was a barrage of bone on bone, each impact sounding like a rhythmic clap of thunder.
Kashimo's eyes burned with a manic, focused intensity. His arms moved with increasing speed, his fists a continuous stream of force that gave the Mahoraga no room to breathe.
For the final blow, he drew back his arm and channeled his entire reservoir of cursed energy into his knuckles. He prid the charge and released it all at once.
The sound split the air.
The electrical discharge he'd been holding back finally erupted, a blinding glare of blue-white light that turned the battlefield into high noon. Mahoraga was sent hurtling back, crashing into the dirt with a massive hole torn through its abdon. The edges of the wound were charred black, still sparking with residual arcs of electricity.
The beast struggled to find its feet.
The white figure swayed as a thick, viscous fluid leaked from the gap in its stomach and trailed down its torso. It wasn't blood or cursed energy residue, just a strange, unnatural light that shimred in the fading glow of the lightning.
Still, the beast remained standing.
There was a mont of heavy silence.
Click.
The tallic sound of a gear turning cut through the air. The wheel atop Mahoraga's head rotated once. The sound was quiet, but it didn't seem that way to him.
He stared, his eyes wide. A twitch started at the corner of his mouth as a wave of disbelief washed over him.
Are you serious? he thought. Sensitive skin, much? It's already adapted?
He had only landed one real discharge. He hadn't even started the real fight, and the beast was already clicking into a new state.
But Mahoraga didn't give him ti to dwell on it. The beast launched another offensive, its speed and power undiminished. The massive void in its stomach had already nded, the charred flesh replaced by smooth, white skin as if the wound had never existed.
Kashimo blurred through the attacks, weaving through the general's reach. He snapped a kick into the beast's side, drawing a spray of the black fluid.
He narrowed his eyes. He realized what was happening.
It hadn't adapted to his lightning yet. It had simply... hardened.
The beast's defensive threshold was skyrocketing with every passing second. It was becoming harder to move, harder to bruise. If the fight dragged on, its defense would reach a point where he wouldn't even be able to scratch the surface.
Fine. He would end it now.
Kashimo took a deep breath, his focus sharpening into a single, lethal point.
He made a choice. He established a Binding Vow: a permanent increase in his total cursed energy reserves in exchange for cutting the effectiveness of his future Cursed Technique in half.
The mont the vow was struck, a massive surge of power erupted from the core of his being. It felt like a dam breaking, a flood of energy filling his limbs.
"Cursed Technique Release: Mythical Beast Amber."
The words left his lips, and his physical form began to disintegrate.
His flesh and bone dissolved in a roar of blue-white light, rebuilding themselves into a structure of pure electricity. His arms and legs beca semi-transparent energy, his skin a roadmap of sparking circuits. He looked less like a man and more like sothing made of lightning.
This was a technique Kashimo could only use once in a lifeti. It transford his body into an elental vessel, a structure that existed entirely beyond human limits.
Thunder erupted around him as he rose from the ground. The pressure of his cursed energy beca suffocating. Even with the technique's output cut by half, the elental transformation was absolute.
He could feel the change in his marrow. His body was lightning. He used electromagnetic pulses to stimulate his brain, syncing his thoughts with the physical world until his perception was flawless.
His vision shifted. He could see in X-ray, tracking the flow of cursed energy beneath Mahoraga's skin. He felt the build-up of the evaporative electromagnetic waves within his palms, the power to turn anything it touched into mist.
Mahoraga charged.
The white silhouette lunged forward with terrifying montum, the Sword of Extermination carving an arc through the air. In that sa instant, Kashimo's chest expanded. He coiled his strength like a drawn bow.
He fired a miniature railgun from his mouth.
The blue-white beam tore through the air with a high-pitched scream. It punched through Mahoraga's torso, leaving a cauterized, jagged void where half its chest used to be.
Kashimo didn't give it a chance to heal.
He closed the distance, his lightning-wreathed fists descending like a thunder. One, two, four, eight… Each strike carried the force of a detonation. His fists moved so fast they didn't even leave afterimages.
A series of brilliant explosions lit up the center of the battlefield, a symphony of destruction that buried the Mahoraga in a wall of thunder.
Kashimo raised his palms. He released the evaporative electromagnetic waves.
A brilliant, lethal white light gathered in his hands before blooming outward. It was the heat of a sun held in a human grip.
In the center of that light, the wheel atop Mahoraga's head turned to ash. There was no sound, and no residue. It simply ceased to exist.
The glare finally faded.
Kashimo dropped out of his elental form, his body returning to flesh. He was naked, his limbs and face charred black by the feedback of the technique. His skin was a map of cracks and burns.
He took a steady breath and activated his reverse cursed technique. Cursed energy flowed through him like cold water, slowly nding the scorched tissue and rebuilding his skin.
As the dust settled, only one figure remained standing in the center of the ruin.
The result was final.
Kashimo had won.
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A/n: The action ends with this chapter. Don't forget to tell your thoughts about the fight. Thanks for the support too. Next goal 900 stones!!
For early access to 15 chapters ahead: p@tre~~/Demonic_Fiction (Link is in the synopsis and my profile).
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